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Alumni Spotlight

First Alumni Day

The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry hosted its first “Alumni Day” Friday, April 24th. Over 80 people attended the events which included student led lab tours, lunch and student poster sessions, an alumni panel discussion in our Careers in Chemistry and Biochemistry course (CHEM 190), research presentations by current students, and keynote seminars by alumnus Payam Farahani (Peregrine Pharmaceuticals, Inc) and alumna Dr. Navid Madani (Professor, Harvard Medical School). The alumni led panel was comprised of Dr. Jared Wiig (UC Irvine), Dr. Jimmy Hernandez (Loma Linda University), and Simona Bor (an MD/Ph.D. student at Harvard). Current student presentations were given by Stephen Flynn (Linder Lab), Brenna Biggs (Haan Lab, winner of the CSUF Research Competition), and Ashley Chui (Bridges Lab, and CSU winner of the Glenn Nagel Research Award). Dr. Navid Madani, who worked in the Linder Lab at Fullerton, presented two seminars: “An Approach to Halt the AIDS Epidemic: Sensitization of HIV-1 to Vaccine-Elicited Antibodies” and “An Effective Response to AIDS in the Middle East and North Africa: Using Science as a Platform for International Collaboration”. Alumni, faculty, and students were joined by emeritus faculty Dr. Gene Hiegel, Dr. Robert Belloli, Dr. Dorothy Wong, and Dr. Eric Streitberger, who recently established the Eric and Alyse Streitberger Science Education Endowed Scholarship for students going into teaching careers. Also attending was Dr. Greta Nagel who established the Glenn Nagel Scholarship in honor of the late Dr. Glenn Nagel who was a strong advocate for undergraduate research experiences as a Professor, Chair, and Dean.

Dr. Greta Nagel discusses research with new Glenn Nagel Scholarship Award winner Aneta Jelowicki who conducts research in the de Lijser Lab.

Dr. Maria Linder (left) with alumnus Alex Burtea (center, now in a Ph.D. program at UC Irvine) and Dr. Madeline Rasche.

Dr. Maria Linder with alumna and keynote speaker Dr. Navid Madani and alumnus Dr. Kirk Tanner. Navid Madani got her B.S. in Biochemistry from Cal State Fullerton, where she also met her husband, Kirk Tanner, who was a classmate. While Kirk went to get his PhD at UCSD, Navid got her Master's degree with Maria Linder, and then went on to get her PhD at Oregon Health and Sciences University in Portland, doing cutting-edge research on HIV. Her post-doctoral work on HIV was at Harvard, where she continues to study HIV mechanisms and potential treatments. She has also become active in global health issues pertaining to HIV.

Alumnus Payam Farahani addresses the Advances in Biotechnology (CHEM 472B) class plus guests about his path to earning a graduate degree from CSUF under Dr. Madeline Rasche and how the skills he gained as a student have helped him in his career as an Associate Scientist at a local biotech company.

Bridges Program Leads to Research Position

As an undergraduate student, Gurpreet Singh got the opportunity to work in the forefront of dental research at Stanford University through Cal State Fullerton's Bridges to Stem Cell Research Program. His six-month internship involved working closely with researchers on designing and executing experiments to completion.

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